Friday, March 25, 2011

Madonna's Malawi charity fails and Ethiopian adoptions shut down to a trickle: Could there be abuse in the system?

Lorraine

Madonna's plans for a swell school for girls in Malawi (from where she has adopted two children) are going up in smoke, but in the meantime $3.8 million was spent on architectural drawings, nice cars and golf-club memberships, according to news reports today. Oy vey, was all I could think--think what could have been done with that money for boys and girls in Malawi--and their families--instead of turning them into families who are so poor they feel they must relinquish their children to people in more affluent nations to be adopted. By Madonna, perhaps, herself! How lucky is that?*

Madonna in 2007, photo by Karel Prinsloo AP

Madonna was apparently urged not to build the elaborate school (by Malawi's standards) she and some high-priced architects envisioned, but to channel any money she might raise into educational programs run by "existing and proven non-governmental channels." But apparently what Madonna wants, Madonna gets, including a "purely ceremonial groundbreaking and the laying of the first brick at the school," according to The New York Times, that occurred some time ago. One brick, no brick layers, but a lot of press and hot air. Why do people do this things? For the life of me, I'll never know.

Madonna says she plans to raise more money for her "Raising Malawi" project, and will use the money in other ways. Well, we have an idea. Let's start by saying it involves keeping more families intact. Let's raise the standard of living for a whole lot of people so they are not pressured to give up their children to rich folks from other countries. Now that's an idea.

While we are discussing Africa, we turn our attention once again to Ethiopia. Earlier this month, the Ethiopian Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs reduced out-of-country (or intercountry) adoptions by 90 percent. The Ministry states that this reduction is being put into place because of the assumption that corruption in intercountry adoption is systemic and rampant, and that the Ministry's resources should be focused on the children for whom intercountry adoption is not an option. Maybe somebody over in Ethiopia finally got around to seeing the CBS report from February, 2010, which clearly shows the fraud being used to get parents to give up their children, and the children who ended up in America thinking they were coming on a program akin to studying abroad. Or maybe the government finally decided that the reports of ministers lining their pockets with gold for selling children finally seemed like bad publicity. Or maybe, just maybe, somebody found their ethics at the back of the closet.

Ministry spokesman Abiy Ephrem says the action was taken in response to indications of widespread fraud in the adoption process, about which we have written (More Stench Coming from Ethiopian Adoptions through Christian World Adoptions) earlier. "What we have seen so far has been some illegal practices. There is an abuse. There are some cases that are illegal. So these directives will pave the way to come up with [safeguards]," said Abiy Ephrem.

In some cases, investigator found unscrupulous operators (Christian World Adoptions among the primary agencies involved in Ethiopia) tricking parents to give up their children, then falsifying documents in order claim a part of the large fees involved in intercountry adoptions. American couples often pay $20,000 and up to adopt an Ethiopian child, an enormous fortune in a country where the average family lives on a few hundred dollars a month.More than 2,500 children from Ethiopia were sent to the United States last year, making Ethiopia second only to China in the number of exported children for profit.

All this rearranging the children for the profit of a few is quite plainly, sick. Google "Ethiopian adoption" and you find a number of websites decrying the near shut down of adoptions from Ethiopia. At Adoption.com, you find suggestions as to how to get the government to go back to allowing more adoptions, despite the obvious abuse. Angie at Adoption.com urges parents who have already adopted from Ethiopia to send three pictures (of your adorable child) and 50 words to the ministry telling them why they should allow parents to sell their children to wealthier couples. International adoption may have a place in today's world, but with the high demand for young children in the developed nations of the world, it has turned into a sick, dirty business.--lorraine

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For more information, see Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR),as well Pound Pup Legacy, a blog and website devoted to disseminating information on child trafficking and adoptions around the world. (These links will take you to three pages of information about adoption from Ethiopia.)
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*The Daily Bastardette has a cute fashion photo of Madonna's latest adoptee, Mercy James.
The books featured today at about Korean adoptions, but the sentiments therein are universal.

5 comments
:

I read about this yesterday on Bastardette. Madonna bought the little girl she adopted who isn't an orphan.Her promises are empty as she is with all the money she reportedly raised you would think she could hire professionals to make sure her purchase actually helped some truly needy kids.

How many kids could have been helped and fed. What pitiful waste looks like she is going to earn more moneyseems like she's at making and wasting and taking.

This story sickens me. 3.8 million dollars. How many Malawi children would that have enabled to live with their REAL parents and be raised to adulthood? I remember when Madonna's petition to adopt Mercy was denied. But, of course, what Madonna wants Madonna gets.

I find it terribly sad that there is not more press about this idiocy. The facts are simple, almost every third-world nation where American's adopt has a huge amount of corruption. The adopters should, at this point in time, be completely aware of the abuses in the system... So it makes you wonder at the ignorance of the individuals or maybe just the greed.

As for Madonna, I didn't like her music and I don't like her lifestyle or the things she does to bring herself back into the limelight... she is pathetic.

Regardless of what I think about Madonna, Oprah, Angelina and other professed do-gooders personally, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they want to improve conditions for children in whatever African country they happen to land in.

I spent time in East Africa and know that it’s very difficult to look in any direction and not be compelled to act immediately to help. Girls, boys and women particularly who face rape each day. There are mechanisms in place in most African countries, the ones not at war with themselves, for education. Many developed and supported by UNICEF, the Peace Corps and well established NGOs.

What’s missing in the popular media and whenever these very visible individual do-gooders make the press is that without support in the form of clean water, feminine hygiene products for school-age girls, malaria nets and personal safety for school-aged girls and boys, it’s almost impossible for children to complete education beyond a certain age perpetuating the poverty, illiteracy and violence that the do-gooders are trying to erase. And it’s these very things that compromise families. It’s easy for people willing to pay for children so sure they’re able to make a better life for the child. They’re willing to pay for children rather than do their research to identify NGOs and other organizations working from the ground up to change things, for the better, for African children and families within their own countries.

For the life of me I can’t see how one intercountry adoption raises the lot of the millions left behind.

A beautiful song from a Korean adoptee

From the New York Times

"Lorraine Dusky, a writer who relinquished a daughter as a young single mother in New York State in 1966, supports opening the records. She reported in her 2015 memoir that in the handful of states that offered women the opportunity to remove their names from original birth certificates, only a small fraction of women — fewer than 1 percent — chose to do so." --Don’t Keep Adopted People in the Dark by Gabrielle Glaser, June 19, 2018

Who Are We?

From the New York Times

"On FirstMotherForum.com, a blog that discusses issues among women who had given children up for adoption, Lorraine Dusky, one of the site’s authors, praised the series (ABC's 10-episode Find My Family): 'Maybe this will be heard by people who think it is unloyal somehow for a person to search out his or her roots, parents, family, when it is a most natural desire of consciousness.'--Two Reality Shows Stir Publicity and Anger"--Dec. 6, 2009.

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"It shouldn't take a miracle to find people you are related to by blood."--Jenn Gentlesk